We always know of those who die from drugs gone bad. What no one can really put a finger on is the number who are lost while drugs sit trying to get approved or past the FUD of people against the methods used to make the drugs.
No one loses their government job NOT approving a drug, because those who died won't even know that there might have been something that might have saved them. Those who die from reactions to drugs, and some have been pulled after small number of deaths - well publicized granted - yet thousands saved.
So, how many should we allow to starve? Die from lack of nutrients because of the small chance that something MIGHT go wrong? Oh I forgot, thats the safe route because no one will lose their job if we don't approve something otherwise determined to be safe.
Capitialism is one of the main reasons there is more than enough food to go around. It is one reason a lot of grains get shipped to third world areas.
You want a government type to blame then blame the dictatorships. The petty dictators of many these countries who accept food shipments, monentary grants, and actual machinery are one of the major reasons many starve. They spend money on their luxurious lifestyles while their people live in squalor. They spend money on their armies while their people die by the use of the same armies to keep them in line. Some nations even go so far and divert money they can now spare to fund terrorism in their neighboring countries. All the best of the foods, medicines, and equipment goes to themselves and relatives of the families running these countries.
Sorry but the push for GM crops is because they can grow where other crops cannot. They can provide nutrients available by no other means. So what if someone profits, the fact the chance at profit existed is why the crop exists. What you say? Oh, all those non-captialist societies were hell bent on solving hunger and engineering crops for the sake of their people - oh, wait a minute they weren't were they.
Got to love the tinfoil hats that like to villianize capitalism. Its easy to find negatives, why not look at the good that comes and put the blame where it belongs.
I always find the comment "the granting of patents to obvious things/concepts" amusing.
Obvious when? To whom? Why?
That is what patents protect. Before it is obvious. Someone has to not only come up with the idea but act on it. That last part is harder than anything.
I agree that some patents are inherently silly, being applied for well after prior-art existed. Yet if the disk based DVR and such was so obvious why wasn't it out and established before tivo?
never mind the fact that many farmers across the globe work longer hours. Never mind the fact that many people voluntarily work longer hours in similar jobs. Never mind the fact that many people leading small businesses work the same or more.
Look, working more than 40 hours to many people is the "Norm". They have goals and are willing to spend their time in pursuit of them. You have to understand what an aberration the 40 hour work week really is. It simply makes no sense in some industries; not saying 60 hours make sense in the industry in question. If it is not slave labor then I see no point in dragging Apple or another company through the mud. Look, a good number of those people would have to seek employment elsewhere if forced back to 40 hours by taking second jobs and the like. Then your back to square one.
The first rule we must adhere to with the number of hours worked is not to apply our individual standards to it. The second is to realize that there are a great many jobs which people take on that require this number and more. The third is to realize is that a great many people do this on their own iniative.
What do we want ? Laws that prevent people from working more than 40 hours a week? Would you also prevent them doing so if they did it with multiple employers? What if it were two different jobs but the same employer?
60 hours a week is NOTHING about human rights. It is everything about humans trying to make it better for themselves and their families. It wasn't too long ago in this country that parents worked incredible hours for their families. Now too many work for themselves and won't even consider sacrifices for family or future.
for one of their viruses getting out then by all means I think Consumer Reports should be allowed to continue.
Catching them after they are out is easy. The consumer really has so very little to go on from a "trusted source" in regards to virus scanning that the obscurity benefits the AVG companies. With a little more light on the subject we all benefit, all except the AVG companies. Guarantee that whomever CR picks is going to parade that around regardless of their stance before testing occurs.
Again, if CR is willing to accept liability for one of their tests getting out into the wild then I say go for it! Perhaps they should register their "new toys" with someone for backup? Of course that makes for another hole too.
perhaps the idea is to bring out dual processors to the 299 price point?
the 3600x2 might get squeezed into a system at that pricepoint.
I always felt that if AMD chips were going to get used by Dell it would be to push the low end price even lower than before. Right now that 299 desktops and 499 laptops. With AMD cutting prices perhaps Dell sees these numbers even lower. Bottom end single cores for 249 and laptops 449?
Reading through comments here brings one thing to light. It never ceases to amaze how many can declare something like this being so easy to do that it should be cheap or free.
This is like the idiot manager who figures if he can write a word document about a process in a day it should not take that long for me to code it. After all, he had to add bullet points and color too.
Combine "anything" with the word "airplane" and suddenly the complexity level goes up. Its like movies and water. There are so many dependancies that did not exist before that it becomes mind boggling.
How do you make it seamless? How much redunancy has to be built in so that is works 99% of the time? Fail more than once for any traveler and it probably will never sell to him or his friends again. How do you prove beyond a doubt it cannot intefere with the flight? How will other passengers respond to other people on long flights engaging in business all the time? Do you allow vid conferencing? etc?
I didn't see the costs as unreasonable. The fact that the time on the plane wasn't being wasted by just sitting and drumming of fingers more than easily justified that middling cost. Of course to the know-it-alls here most would have you believe that it was a crime to charge so much even though their time is worth far more than some egotistical ceos.
the terrorists aren't planning on surviving the attack. That is what makes dealing with them nearly impossible. It is not possible to reason with the unreasonable.
As my boss told me, Vietnam ex-SF, taking down an airliner isn't difficult. Combining two seemingly innocous materials is easy and will work especially if your not worried about the results to yourself. Its only difficult if you want to survive the issue.
I like all the people making it out to be a conspiracy on the part of the US. Look, the terrorist already killed someone in flight over the ocean in the Pacific with a scaled down version of the bomb. worse they weren't themselves on board when it detonated. Since they are willing to be on board when it does detonate they are much more capable of making sure it goes off where it will do the most damage.
These guys will glady kill one for one, but they are after the big score. Face it, they will succeed again. The only problem is that we continually hamper the efforts of the governments trying to stop them but I damn well am sure those trying to stop them will be first in line to assign blame when it happens.
The question you need to ask yourself is, just what in the hell do you expect them to do? As before, you cannot reason with an unreasonable enemy. The only things you can do is remove them as a threat. Either do that by thwarting their every effort, which will continue until they do succeed, or contain them so they never get a chance. Neither way is 100% guaratneed to succeed but we sure don't need to be making their jobs easier.
Any technology is going to be useless in preventing terroristic attacks if you force conditions upon it that only make it harder to succeed.
We know a great deal about the people who have or tried to attack airliners. We have age ranges, ethnic backgrounds, countries of origin, and other factors. Unfortunately its not nice to use these in the process.
Apply this technology and similar to people who fit the above categories and your false alert numbers are more manageable. It will never happen.
Apparently 3000+ lives is not enough to pay versus being politically correct.
Simple. Where is the payoff for developing Direct X for other platforms?
It works for the Windows platform. Consumers can get that platform about anywhere a Pc is sold. Support for the platform is usually the vendor of the Pc or Microsoft itself. So, why would you spend development time to take Direct X to another platform when it works just fine on its intended platform which comes with a ready market?
Sorry its not Direct X. Its a lack of customers that does in the Linux and Mac groups.
Put it this way, I can find hundreds if not thousands of posts here from Linux and Mac heads who always claim how much better their OS is. This goes hand in hand with all the claims that they do "real" stuff with the machines instead of playing games and that games are not important to an OS.
Whats it going to be?
If you can afford games you can afford buying an OS just to run them. Relegate XP to what many of you claim its only good for. Its cheaper than buying a console and you can have your good OS on it with your game OS.
Macs went the way of publishing. Apple aimed them that way. They didn't cater to the gaming crowd or game developers. What would you expect to happen? Linux is too fragmented to cater to the developers - AND combine that with an attitude of it should be free or Open source or forget it and that scares off a lot of people. While it isn't always true, people out to make money from their games are going to see the negative side more than the positive.
Microsoft, catered to the gamer and the developer. OpenGL would have been a good choice but if your going to market something it should be something you own. Direct X brought games out of the stoneage on computers. Before then it was a wreck. When the first voodoo cards came out with their Glide drivers it showed that a unified proprietary driver could succeed in the market. The market didn't care that it was closed, it only cared that it worked. Hence Direct X succeeded for the very same reasons. Just as Windows makes it easier for novices to use computers Direct X made it easier for developers to make games. Early versions were not that great but eventually it got better. When developers don't have to aim at individual cards but instead a baseline of "expected features" it eases developement.
Don't expect any shift anytime soon. If anything being able to run XP on a Mac may just stop any market from forming. Hell I am curious if one day you will be able to buy a "Windows for Games" just to install on machines other than those installed with Xp/Vista/etc.
and yet the continue with numbers that many games would be happy to have 10% of.
WOW isn't for you. It also isn't all about raiding, let alone PvP. It never was. I know people who have played multiple characters to 60 who don't see PvP or raiding as the game. To them its the world. See, not everyone looks to be uber. Many people, and probably a majority considering their numbers, look for an engrossing world that is fun to play in with friends. WOW succeeds brillantly because it is easy to play.
So many comment on the need for "hardcore" or difficult games. Well news to ya'll, they are already out there and most of them are floundering. Why? Because its a game. It isn't supposed to be work. The raids of WOW offer that *IF* you choose to devote time to it. There are many "simple" raids that can be done with friends and those are good enough for a lot of people.
If wow lost 1 player for every claim an exodus was coming because of PvP and Raiding there would be no one left. Fortunately some of the people making the claims do leave. People who cannot be satisfied in a game should not play a game.
Null357 asked "With a "war" on "terror" there are going to be casualties, my water consumption/music listening/laptop using/game playing/phone usage habits shouldn't be at the top of the list."
Sorry, but your not at the top of the list. Your a casualty of the other side's attempt to make you a real casualty.
What would you have the government do? The media has already handcuffed them with the help of paticular interest groups from doing what is truly effective, profiling. So whats left? Simple, inconvienence EVERYONE. After all its "only fair". Hence my mother gets harrased trying to board flights with her dog. One day some of ya'll are going to grow up and realize that "the man" isn't out to get you. He is out to get the bad guy and the real problem is that the most effective ways are denied to him because of political correctness.
The truth is that there is a group of people out there who only want to kill. You are no more an individual target of their aspirations as you are no more the direct target of restrictions of what you are allowed to take on a plane with you. These people don't care. The fact that they are willing to die to kill others means that we going to suffer some extraordinary restrictions just to make sure they don't get the chance. You want to blame someone, blame them. I know, its far easier to blame our government and Bush (in fact its popular among some segments) but the truth is that they didn't create this enemy. Its been around a long time. Time and technology have given them a means to hit people other than in their home areas.
This will continue until this group is either rendered harmless or their attempts so futile they go back to doing what they did before.
honestly, what would you expect of your government with regards to this situation? There is no reasonable defense that will work against an unreasonable enemy. The sooner that is acknowleged the sooner many will realize just what a major problem it truly is.
The deal is we have been playing fast and loose with the problem for decades. Terrorism didn't just pop up its ugly head, its been there. The difference is that we haven't been the targets so we all just blithely walked around pretending it didn't matter.
All those poor athletes in the Olympics, not us, so its not a problem. Hijacking planes and killing one or two passengers, again, not us, only a few, not a problem. Blowing up a barracks full of marines, not really us, they//marines// knew they put themselves in danger, not a real problem Blowing up a few embassies, again, not really us, not a real problem, its over there Blowing up some discos overseas, again, their problem, not ours.
Crashing some planes in NY skyscrapers. Oh boy, what? There are terrorist out there? Never have been any before, must be Bush's fault. etc etc etc
The fact is that five years has allowed us to start questioning all those inconvienences we suffer before we ignored the issue before it bit us in the butt the first time. Yeah, they government is over stretching their limits. But this discussion is about flying restrictions and your trying to drag unrelated issues into the conversation at hand. So while I think the PI stinks I don't think it has anything to do with the issue at hand.
Face it, you fly, you ride up top and everything else, provided its insepcted for safety flies below. Don't like it, drive. Its not a right. Take a ship, but be prepared to go through the same process soon as they are going be targets next especially if we make getting an airplane even more difficult.
The damn annoying fact is that they don't care. They want us dead and they are going to try over and over and over. Bitching about the inconvience they cause is what they want. If we bitch enough someone will back down in government and our guard will drop. Drop enough and another plane goes up in smoke.
Face it, we cannot be free in a world where you don't do what is necessary to ensure that freedom. That does mean getting rid of the lunatics who use your freedom, and racial guilt to keep theirs, against you. We are going have to profile everywhere soon. Sorry, but if your from a country where known terrorist come from you should damn well expect the scrutiny. If you don't like it then CLEAN UP YOUR EFFING COUNTRY. Quit exporting your shit to us.
The fact is and has always been the same. Radical Islam wants to destroy the West. The best way to bring down their target is through fear. Ignoring it got us in the mess in the first place.
the Feds, backed by their "own" courts consistently use the idea that if Federal money is involved, no matter how loosely, that this trumps state's rights. This is primarily used to force "unfunded/underfunded mandates" on the states.
I totally disagree with the tactics being used to force the video to be made available. At the same time I think its wrong to cover up a crime because of one's beliefs. If you videotape a crime then you are obligated to report it. There can be none of this "its okay for us but not them mentality" because we are all us and them at the same time.
He claims there is no crime on the tape, fine, then show it and be done with it. Get it to a public outlet. If there is a crime then he just publicity hounding and forcing an issue that should never had occured.
Hopefully the Feds will lose this attempt to secure the tape but at the same time hopefully he will turn it over to someone if it shows a crime being committed. Willful destruction of property should not be tolerated in any state, free or not. If you cannot protest without destroying someone else's property you need to be locked up as your not a productive part of society let alone doing your cause any good.
It is through the streamlining of purchasing computers that led to more standardization across components. It also led to innovations in cooling and airflow, integration, and ease of use. They have to find new ways to keep people coming back. This means more features, easier access to the features, and easier use. This just doesn't happen. The market has to be there or be invented.
While Mr. Dell might not have been personally in the design process of every machine I bet he did have some influence over early machines and to this day the ideas he suggest do have weight if not merit. Too many people discount Dell, Gates, and others simply because they don't like the product or just have some inate personality problem - especially against people who did well.
Not everyone can do this, and obviously not as well as he did. Dell is very much his company just like Jobs is Apple. You cannot separate the two and have the same thing. Both could go off and do something else but its their drive and initiative that led their respective companies to success.
People are acting like the money is free. Trouble is a great many people in that county are going to be taxed for a service that a good number will never get to use.
Oh yeah, I know, there will be programs for people of certain groups to get access, most won't take advantage of it. Its another feel good bill that makes it look like a county/city/state is actually doing something good.
Sorry, if even one trailer exist at a local school it should the first thing addressed. Quit diverting money from projects already starved of cash. Internet access is anything but required to live life today and as such doesn't need governments spending money on barely tolerable technology. Next thing we will have 50 zillion connections and jumping from area to area will be a nightmare because none of the wireless providers will agree on any standard. (let alone governments wanting to tax people who are not their own)
The rich get richer by having services they need to do business paid for by everyone else. Wireless is definitely going to be that for sometime until Internet access is actually needed by the general public.
and honestly I would not want it built in. Mine is buried in my center console (Murano) and its not easy to find. You would have to know its there; it sleeps under a bunch of water bottles and whatever else fits into that console on a paticular day.
First, built in means it would probably never be upgradeable. It also means that it would probably be in some inaccessible location should it ever need service (try changing the cabin air filter in a G35 Coupe). Got a friend going along for a trip? Plug their iPod in for a change in taste.
I also do not want my car listening to any wi-fi, let alone being able to transmit on one. What next, that handy little harddrive and electronics would be used to record my driving habits, maybe even flight recorder style my last half hour. Combine with GPS and suddenly we all find our cars can be tattletales to the police or worse, insurance companies.
I also like the idea of MY iPod. If rental cars have these connectors built in then on any vacation I am set.
Let a dashboard indicator remind me the iPod is connected, hell a little lite on the stereo like some CD players had.
Now I would take the integration further. Let me access even more information off the iPod for my navigation system, keeping it more up to date. Find a way to store local radio station information so I can ask my iPod through the car's connection what stations and what types are available where I am. There are all sorts of integration options available that don't require it to be built in.
The quality of life than many Americans does not require public transportation. In fact I would be a good number actually see public transportation as a sign of where NOT to live.
Some of course will take that and run off spouting racism,bigotry, or whatnot. The simple fact is that at the end of the day many aspire to nothing more than being away from it all. Stand alone housing and visual separation from the "business world - read: minimarts/gas stations/grocery stores" is key to the happiness of many. Sure we want them to still be convienent and a short hop in the car isn't an impediment.
I'm even moving further out simply because where I bought has changed so much in 9 years that its no longer the area I desired to live in. Lots of good people are here but the little businesses have creeped down the road to where its no longer "open".
As for your "pay and arm and a leg to massively pollute". Yeah, whatever. Three dollar, heck even 5 dollar a gallon gas isn't going to change my behaviour and I doubt that it will change that of others who live where I do. Cars are far better today than ever and that simpleton slight of yours is just silly. If I want massive pollution I will go to the big city with its public transportation because even there in the land of so called "enlightened" thinking a great many of them seem to not use that very public transportation they deem "good for others". I can go see the trash piled in alleys and cigarette butts lining the sidewalk. Oh yeah, massively pollute. Cities have no ground to stand on.
First class mail isn't where the money is, especially home delivery.
If they could they would not even deliver on weekends. Hell they could save money by delivering fewer days. My Aunt and cousin are Postmasters. Home delivery is the big expense.
If it wasn't for filler (all that junk mail) first class postage would be even higher. Its still the best deal for getting something to someone.
If the clothing is loose enough the knife/point object would still penetrate the skin, it just would be taking the fabric along for the ride.
I read awhile back (old wives tale maybe?) that being stabbed while wearing kevlar isn't always going to protect you as the knife does not have to penetrate the kevlar to penetrate the skin, especially cavity areas.
Slashdot Mirror
We always know of those who die from drugs gone bad. What no one can really put a finger on is the number who are lost while drugs sit trying to get approved or past the FUD of people against the methods used to make the drugs.
No one loses their government job NOT approving a drug, because those who died won't even know that there might have been something that might have saved them. Those who die from reactions to drugs, and some have been pulled after small number of deaths - well publicized granted - yet thousands saved.
So, how many should we allow to starve? Die from lack of nutrients because of the small chance that something MIGHT go wrong? Oh I forgot, thats the safe route because no one will lose their job if we don't approve something otherwise determined to be safe.
Capitialism is one of the main reasons there is more than enough food to go around. It is one reason a lot of grains get shipped to third world areas.
You want a government type to blame then blame the dictatorships. The petty dictators of many these countries who accept food shipments, monentary grants, and actual machinery are one of the major reasons many starve. They spend money on their luxurious lifestyles while their people live in squalor. They spend money on their armies while their people die by the use of the same armies to keep them in line. Some nations even go so far and divert money they can now spare to fund terrorism in their neighboring countries. All the best of the foods, medicines, and equipment goes to themselves and relatives of the families running these countries.
Sorry but the push for GM crops is because they can grow where other crops cannot. They can provide nutrients available by no other means. So what if someone profits, the fact the chance at profit existed is why the crop exists. What you say? Oh, all those non-captialist societies were hell bent on solving hunger and engineering crops for the sake of their people - oh, wait a minute they weren't were they.
Got to love the tinfoil hats that like to villianize capitalism. Its easy to find negatives, why not look at the good that comes and put the blame where it belongs.
The other couples I know all have the same idea, either coming to it over time or just knowing it.
Anything in the bedroom other than furniture and your spouse is a distraction.
Keep the TV out, keep the computer out as well. (hell in some cases you may need to evict pets too!)
People always try to find reasons for why relationships fail, well failure to dedicate time and space to it sure will help it fail
Marry off O'Neil and Carter.
They can put Daniel over on SGA if he needs a job, but for the fan's sake marry of Carter and O'Neil.
I always find the comment "the granting of patents to obvious things/concepts" amusing.
Obvious when? To whom? Why?
That is what patents protect. Before it is obvious. Someone has to not only come up with the idea but act on it. That last part is harder than anything.
I agree that some patents are inherently silly, being applied for well after prior-art existed. Yet if the disk based DVR and such was so obvious why wasn't it out and established before tivo?
never mind the fact that many farmers across the globe work longer hours. Never mind the fact that many people voluntarily work longer hours in similar jobs. Never mind the fact that many people leading small businesses work the same or more.
Look, working more than 40 hours to many people is the "Norm". They have goals and are willing to spend their time in pursuit of them. You have to understand what an aberration the 40 hour work week really is. It simply makes no sense in some industries; not saying 60 hours make sense in the industry in question. If it is not slave labor then I see no point in dragging Apple or another company through the mud. Look, a good number of those people would have to seek employment elsewhere if forced back to 40 hours by taking second jobs and the like. Then your back to square one.
The first rule we must adhere to with the number of hours worked is not to apply our individual standards to it. The second is to realize that there are a great many jobs which people take on that require this number and more. The third is to realize is that a great many people do this on their own iniative.
What do we want ? Laws that prevent people from working more than 40 hours a week? Would you also prevent them doing so if they did it with multiple employers? What if it were two different jobs but the same employer?
60 hours a week is NOTHING about human rights. It is everything about humans trying to make it better for themselves and their families. It wasn't too long ago in this country that parents worked incredible hours for their families. Now too many work for themselves and won't even consider sacrifices for family or future.
for one of their viruses getting out then by all means I think Consumer Reports should be allowed to continue.
Catching them after they are out is easy. The consumer really has so very little to go on from a "trusted source" in regards to virus scanning that the obscurity benefits the AVG companies. With a little more light on the subject we all benefit, all except the AVG companies. Guarantee that whomever CR picks is going to parade that around regardless of their stance before testing occurs.
Again, if CR is willing to accept liability for one of their tests getting out into the wild then I say go for it! Perhaps they should register their "new toys" with someone for backup? Of course that makes for another hole too.
perhaps the idea is to bring out dual processors to the 299 price point?
the 3600x2 might get squeezed into a system at that pricepoint.
I always felt that if AMD chips were going to get used by Dell it would be to push the low end price even lower than before. Right now that 299 desktops and 499 laptops. With AMD cutting prices perhaps Dell sees these numbers even lower. Bottom end single cores for 249 and laptops 449?
Can't wait.
Reading through comments here brings one thing to light. It never ceases to amaze how many can declare something like this being so easy to do that it should be cheap or free.
This is like the idiot manager who figures if he can write a word document about a process in a day it should not take that long for me to code it. After all, he had to add bullet points and color too.
Combine "anything" with the word "airplane" and suddenly the complexity level goes up. Its like movies and water. There are so many dependancies that did not exist before that it becomes mind boggling.
How do you make it seamless?
How much redunancy has to be built in so that is works 99% of the time? Fail more than once for any traveler and it probably will never sell to him or his friends again.
How do you prove beyond a doubt it cannot intefere with the flight?
How will other passengers respond to other people on long flights engaging in business all the time? Do you allow vid conferencing? etc?
I didn't see the costs as unreasonable. The fact that the time on the plane wasn't being wasted by just sitting and drumming of fingers more than easily justified that middling cost. Of course to the know-it-alls here most would have you believe that it was a crime to charge so much even though their time is worth far more than some egotistical ceos.
the terrorists aren't planning on surviving the attack. That is what makes dealing with them nearly impossible. It is not possible to reason with the unreasonable.
As my boss told me, Vietnam ex-SF, taking down an airliner isn't difficult. Combining two seemingly innocous materials is easy and will work especially if your not worried about the results to yourself. Its only difficult if you want to survive the issue.
I like all the people making it out to be a conspiracy on the part of the US. Look, the terrorist already killed someone in flight over the ocean in the Pacific with a scaled down version of the bomb. worse they weren't themselves on board when it detonated. Since they are willing to be on board when it does detonate they are much more capable of making sure it goes off where it will do the most damage.
These guys will glady kill one for one, but they are after the big score. Face it, they will succeed again. The only problem is that we continually hamper the efforts of the governments trying to stop them but I damn well am sure those trying to stop them will be first in line to assign blame when it happens.
The question you need to ask yourself is, just what in the hell do you expect them to do? As before, you cannot reason with an unreasonable enemy. The only things you can do is remove them as a threat. Either do that by thwarting their every effort, which will continue until they do succeed, or contain them so they never get a chance. Neither way is 100% guaratneed to succeed but we sure don't need to be making their jobs easier.
Any technology is going to be useless in preventing terroristic attacks if you force conditions upon it that only make it harder to succeed.
We know a great deal about the people who have or tried to attack airliners. We have age ranges, ethnic backgrounds, countries of origin, and other factors. Unfortunately its not nice to use these in the process.
Apply this technology and similar to people who fit the above categories and your false alert numbers are more manageable. It will never happen.
Apparently 3000+ lives is not enough to pay versus being politically correct.
Simple. Where is the payoff for developing Direct X for other platforms?
It works for the Windows platform. Consumers can get that platform about anywhere a Pc is sold. Support for the platform is usually the vendor of the Pc or Microsoft itself. So, why would you spend development time to take Direct X to another platform when it works just fine on its intended platform which comes with a ready market?
Sorry its not Direct X. Its a lack of customers that does in the Linux and Mac groups.
Put it this way, I can find hundreds if not thousands of posts here from Linux and Mac heads who always claim how much better their OS is. This goes hand in hand with all the claims that they do "real" stuff with the machines instead of playing games and that games are not important to an OS.
Whats it going to be?
If you can afford games you can afford buying an OS just to run them. Relegate XP to what many of you claim its only good for. Its cheaper than buying a console and you can have your good OS on it with your game OS.
Macs went the way of publishing. Apple aimed them that way. They didn't cater to the gaming crowd or game developers. What would you expect to happen? Linux is too fragmented to cater to the developers - AND combine that with an attitude of it should be free or Open source or forget it and that scares off a lot of people. While it isn't always true, people out to make money from their games are going to see the negative side more than the positive.
Microsoft, catered to the gamer and the developer. OpenGL would have been a good choice but if your going to market something it should be something you own. Direct X brought games out of the stoneage on computers. Before then it was a wreck. When the first voodoo cards came out with their Glide drivers it showed that a unified proprietary driver could succeed in the market. The market didn't care that it was closed, it only cared that it worked. Hence Direct X succeeded for the very same reasons. Just as Windows makes it easier for novices to use computers Direct X made it easier for developers to make games. Early versions were not that great but eventually it got better. When developers don't have to aim at individual cards but instead a baseline of "expected features" it eases developement.
Don't expect any shift anytime soon. If anything being able to run XP on a Mac may just stop any market from forming. Hell I am curious if one day you will be able to buy a "Windows for Games" just to install on machines other than those installed with Xp/Vista/etc.
and yet the continue with numbers that many games would be happy to have 10% of.
WOW isn't for you. It also isn't all about raiding, let alone PvP. It never was. I know people who have played multiple characters to 60 who don't see PvP or raiding as the game. To them its the world. See, not everyone looks to be uber. Many people, and probably a majority considering their numbers, look for an engrossing world that is fun to play in with friends. WOW succeeds brillantly because it is easy to play.
So many comment on the need for "hardcore" or difficult games. Well news to ya'll, they are already out there and most of them are floundering. Why? Because its a game. It isn't supposed to be work. The raids of WOW offer that *IF* you choose to devote time to it. There are many "simple" raids that can be done with friends and those are good enough for a lot of people.
If wow lost 1 player for every claim an exodus was coming because of PvP and Raiding there would be no one left. Fortunately some of the people making the claims do leave. People who cannot be satisfied in a game should not play a game.
then compete on price.
you claim you already have the OS and features I need and should want.
Now just deliver them for a price I want.
Null357 asked "With a "war" on "terror" there are going to be casualties, my water consumption/music listening/laptop using/game playing/phone usage habits shouldn't be at the top of the list."
Sorry, but your not at the top of the list. Your a casualty of the other side's attempt to make you a real casualty.
What would you have the government do? The media has already handcuffed them with the help of paticular interest groups from doing what is truly effective, profiling. So whats left? Simple, inconvienence EVERYONE. After all its "only fair". Hence my mother gets harrased trying to board flights with her dog. One day some of ya'll are going to grow up and realize that "the man" isn't out to get you. He is out to get the bad guy and the real problem is that the most effective ways are denied to him because of political correctness.
The truth is that there is a group of people out there who only want to kill. You are no more an individual target of their aspirations as you are no more the direct target of restrictions of what you are allowed to take on a plane with you. These people don't care. The fact that they are willing to die to kill others means that we going to suffer some extraordinary restrictions just to make sure they don't get the chance. You want to blame someone, blame them. I know, its far easier to blame our government and Bush (in fact its popular among some segments) but the truth is that they didn't create this enemy. Its been around a long time. Time and technology have given them a means to hit people other than in their home areas.
This will continue until this group is either rendered harmless or their attempts so futile they go back to doing what they did before.
honestly, what would you expect of your government with regards to this situation? There is no reasonable defense that will work against an unreasonable enemy. The sooner that is acknowleged the sooner many will realize just what a major problem it truly is.
The deal is we have been playing fast and loose with the problem for decades. Terrorism didn't just pop up its ugly head, its been there. The difference is that we haven't been the targets so we all just blithely walked around pretending it didn't matter.
//marines// knew they put themselves in danger, not a real problem
All those poor athletes in the Olympics, not us, so its not a problem.
Hijacking planes and killing one or two passengers, again, not us, only a few, not a problem.
Blowing up a barracks full of marines, not really us, they
Blowing up a few embassies, again, not really us, not a real problem, its over there
Blowing up some discos overseas, again, their problem, not ours.
Crashing some planes in NY skyscrapers. Oh boy, what? There are terrorist out there? Never have been any before, must be Bush's fault. etc etc etc
The fact is that five years has allowed us to start questioning all those inconvienences we suffer before we ignored the issue before it bit us in the butt the first time. Yeah, they government is over stretching their limits. But this discussion is about flying restrictions and your trying to drag unrelated issues into the conversation at hand. So while I think the PI stinks I don't think it has anything to do with the issue at hand.
Face it, you fly, you ride up top and everything else, provided its insepcted for safety flies below. Don't like it, drive. Its not a right. Take a ship, but be prepared to go through the same process soon as they are going be targets next especially if we make getting an airplane even more difficult.
The damn annoying fact is that they don't care. They want us dead and they are going to try over and over and over. Bitching about the inconvience they cause is what they want. If we bitch enough someone will back down in government and our guard will drop. Drop enough and another plane goes up in smoke.
Face it, we cannot be free in a world where you don't do what is necessary to ensure that freedom. That does mean getting rid of the lunatics who use your freedom, and racial guilt to keep theirs, against you. We are going have to profile everywhere soon. Sorry, but if your from a country where known terrorist come from you should damn well expect the scrutiny. If you don't like it then CLEAN UP YOUR EFFING COUNTRY. Quit exporting your shit to us.
when you are reporting the truth.
The fact is and has always been the same. Radical Islam wants to destroy the West. The best way to bring down their target is through fear. Ignoring it got us in the mess in the first place.
the Feds, backed by their "own" courts consistently use the idea that if Federal money is involved, no matter how loosely, that this trumps state's rights. This is primarily used to force "unfunded/underfunded mandates" on the states.
I totally disagree with the tactics being used to force the video to be made available. At the same time I think its wrong to cover up a crime because of one's beliefs. If you videotape a crime then you are obligated to report it. There can be none of this "its okay for us but not them mentality" because we are all us and them at the same time.
He claims there is no crime on the tape, fine, then show it and be done with it. Get it to a public outlet. If there is a crime then he just publicity hounding and forcing an issue that should never had occured.
Hopefully the Feds will lose this attempt to secure the tape but at the same time hopefully he will turn it over to someone if it shows a crime being committed. Willful destruction of property should not be tolerated in any state, free or not. If you cannot protest without destroying someone else's property you need to be locked up as your not a productive part of society let alone doing your cause any good.
It is through the streamlining of purchasing computers that led to more standardization across components. It also led to innovations in cooling and airflow, integration, and ease of use. They have to find new ways to keep people coming back. This means more features, easier access to the features, and easier use. This just doesn't happen. The market has to be there or be invented.
While Mr. Dell might not have been personally in the design process of every machine I bet he did have some influence over early machines and to this day the ideas he suggest do have weight if not merit. Too many people discount Dell, Gates, and others simply because they don't like the product or just have some inate personality problem - especially against people who did well.
Not everyone can do this, and obviously not as well as he did. Dell is very much his company just like Jobs is Apple. You cannot separate the two and have the same thing. Both could go off and do something else but its their drive and initiative that led their respective companies to success.
thats the sad part here.
People are acting like the money is free. Trouble is a great many people in that county are going to be taxed for a service that a good number will never get to use.
Oh yeah, I know, there will be programs for people of certain groups to get access, most won't take advantage of it. Its another feel good bill that makes it look like a county/city/state is actually doing something good.
Sorry, if even one trailer exist at a local school it should the first thing addressed. Quit diverting money from projects already starved of cash. Internet access is anything but required to live life today and as such doesn't need governments spending money on barely tolerable technology. Next thing we will have 50 zillion connections and jumping from area to area will be a nightmare because none of the wireless providers will agree on any standard. (let alone governments wanting to tax people who are not their own)
The rich get richer by having services they need to do business paid for by everyone else. Wireless is definitely going to be that for sometime until Internet access is actually needed by the general public.
and honestly I would not want it built in. Mine is buried in my center console (Murano) and its not easy to find. You would have to know its there; it sleeps under a bunch of water bottles and whatever else fits into that console on a paticular day.
First, built in means it would probably never be upgradeable. It also means that it would probably be in some inaccessible location should it ever need service (try changing the cabin air filter in a G35 Coupe). Got a friend going along for a trip? Plug their iPod in for a change in taste.
I also do not want my car listening to any wi-fi, let alone being able to transmit on one. What next, that handy little harddrive and electronics would be used to record my driving habits, maybe even flight recorder style my last half hour. Combine with GPS and suddenly we all find our cars can be tattletales to the police or worse, insurance companies.
I also like the idea of MY iPod. If rental cars have these connectors built in then on any vacation I am set.
Let a dashboard indicator remind me the iPod is connected, hell a little lite on the stereo like some CD players had.
Now I would take the integration further. Let me access even more information off the iPod for my navigation system, keeping it more up to date. Find a way to store local radio station information so I can ask my iPod through the car's connection what stations and what types are available where I am. There are all sorts of integration options available that don't require it to be built in.
The quality of life than many Americans does not require public transportation. In fact I would be a good number actually see public transportation as a sign of where NOT to live.
Some of course will take that and run off spouting racism,bigotry, or whatnot. The simple fact is that at the end of the day many aspire to nothing more than being away from it all. Stand alone housing and visual separation from the "business world - read: minimarts/gas stations/grocery stores" is key to the happiness of many. Sure we want them to still be convienent and a short hop in the car isn't an impediment.
I'm even moving further out simply because where I bought has changed so much in 9 years that its no longer the area I desired to live in. Lots of good people are here but the little businesses have creeped down the road to where its no longer "open".
As for your "pay and arm and a leg to massively pollute". Yeah, whatever. Three dollar, heck even 5 dollar a gallon gas isn't going to change my behaviour and I doubt that it will change that of others who live where I do. Cars are far better today than ever and that simpleton slight of yours is just silly. If I want massive pollution I will go to the big city with its public transportation because even there in the land of so called "enlightened" thinking a great many of them seem to not use that very public transportation they deem "good for others". I can go see the trash piled in alleys and cigarette butts lining the sidewalk. Oh yeah, massively pollute. Cities have no ground to stand on.
First class mail isn't where the money is, especially home delivery.
If they could they would not even deliver on weekends. Hell they could save money by delivering fewer days. My Aunt and cousin are Postmasters. Home delivery is the big expense.
If it wasn't for filler (all that junk mail) first class postage would be even higher. Its still the best deal for getting something to someone.
If the clothing is loose enough the knife/point object would still penetrate the skin, it just would be taking the fabric along for the ride.
I read awhile back (old wives tale maybe?) that being stabbed while wearing kevlar isn't always going to protect you as the knife does not have to penetrate the kevlar to penetrate the skin, especially cavity areas.